Moustafa Rahman Egypt: mosaic artist, cook, and restauranteur

Object: The symbols of Alexandria that adorn his restaurant, Mombar

ىل ا مع أل نيرخآلا ري د قت ر ظت ن أ ال اذه و ا يص خ ش ى ن عت مي ى نف ، ة ي نف ل ا ىنيفكي

(Arabic)

[My art is what I do to satisfy myself, not to get praise.]

My uncle, my brother and my sister were all engineers. I thought with engineering I could build things with my hands and invent things. I ended up mostly fixing things. I came to the U.S. in 1985 from the city of Alexandria to study electrical engineering at NYU. My brother came about ten years before me, and he opened the Bio: first Egyptian restaurant in 1989. I worked selling Moustafa Rahman was born in Alexandria, copy machines from a small office on Steinway Egypt. He came to New York in 1985 to study Street, and I started decorating the office with electrical engineering at NYU. He opened a my art. I built my restaurant as an art project. It business selling and fixing office equipment on took me seven years. Mombar is an Egyptian dish Steinway Street in Astoria, Queens. In his spare we serve, a stuffed sausage. I see cooking as an time, he pursued his artwork, creating mosaics art too–I was inspired by my mom’s and my and laying tile. After seven years he opened his grandmom’s dishes. restaurant, Mombar in the same space, down the street from where his brother had already For the restaurant I decided to mix old opened his own restaurant in1989. He civilizations with modern art. My home city of continues to serve authentic Egyptian food and Alexandria has Greek, Roman, and Islamic provide an important meeting place in the cultures–and I included all of their symbols: a community. Mombar was the first restaurant to Greek column and Islamic windows with a lotus be listed in Zagat’s under Egyptian cuisine. flower and the pyramid from the Pharaohs’ Other Egyptian restaurants call themselves time. I also included hands on the door, which Middle Eastern restaurants. (Thanks to Judith my grandmother held out to protect her home. Sloan and Warren Lehrer’s Crossing the I put in the eye of God, Horus. All around you Boulevard.) see the eyes of God watching over everybody. The blue in the eye represents the sky. I also use the eight-pointed star you see on all Islamic architecture. You’re not allowed to draw a human image in Islam, so I use the star as a symbol of holy life, and it repeats like a flower in the garden. Egypt is a great civilization, and I wanted to make that very clear. New York is a big pot. Anyone who says he’s just American is lying–except the American Indians.